I Support Mercy Killing - ArchBishop

Here, in this astonishing but deeply considered change of heart, a brilliant former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey explains why he now supports helping some terminally ill patients to die.
Anyone who has had to watch a loved one go through the final agonies of a painful terminal illness is bound to ask deep philosophical questions about the nature of life and death.
I remember Dorothy, one of my congregation many years ago, at the beginning of my career, when I was a parish priest in Durham. An intelligent and faithful Christian lady, she had been an outstanding head teacher.
In retirement, she found out that she had cancer in an advanced form.
I visited her regularly in hospital. I saw the ravages of the illness on her body as she was given huge doses of morphine to try to keep the excruciating pain at bay

Talking about her discomfort one day as she lay with tubes dripping fluids in and taking fluids away, Dorothy questioned whether she could go on, whether life was worth living. 'It is quality of life that counts,' she whispered, 'not number of days.'
When I visited her again, I must have looked very miserable because she looked up at me and said: 'Why are you so sad, Vicar? I'm only dying, you know!'
I saw in that reply the depth of her faith. There was something else, too. Life was precious when it was worth living. Tired and in pain, she feared nothing from its end. Indeed, she died the next day.



NewsCredit- NetoJeffrey
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